Wow, I cannot believe that the movers will be here two weeks from tomorrow!
And I REALLY cannot believe that I actually thought I was in good shape as far as the packing is concerned.
The movers will be here in TWO WEEKS!!! Holy ^%@^@!!!!
We took our bed apart today - it's a Sleep Number bed and queen sized - and now are going through all the "hidden treasures" that were tucked underneath it. That's an adventure. Bob is in charge of the treasure scrounging. We have a double mattress and box springs leaning against the hallway wall and I jolly well expect to be sleeping on them tonight. OR I'm taking the sofa and leaving Bob the recliner.
I am keeping a fairly perpetual headache these days.
The movers will be here two weeks from tomorrow. Heavy sigh.
I gotta start taking some pictures cause you'd never believe it...
Monday, July 28, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
That Gleam in My Eyes
...is the reflection of the oncoming headlights. And all of a sudden I feel like the deer that is caught in them.
We have ordered the movers! And they are coming on either the 12th or 13th of August. The good news is that we have chosen to go with a firm that will give us door-to-door service, meaning that we do NOT have to load any shipping containers!
We do, however, have to provide them with about forty-eleven different sorts of inventories and forms and whatchamacallits and whatevers. AND we have to have everything packed and padded and ready for them to haul out. No big deal, right? Easy-peasy, no? "Hey, Bambi, are them bright shiny things up ahead yonder stars, ya think?"
Up until this moment I felt like I had things fairly well under control.
Not now.
Soooooooo. The plan of attack is to:
1) identify and pack those things left unpacked that we want to have in Boquete
2) pad and/or wrap the furniture and have it ready to go
3) have all the various and sundry pieces of paper (and thumbdrives) sorted out and ready
4) wave farewell to our household goods (with fervent prayers for the safety thereof)
5) collapse onto the floor (no sofa, remember??) in exhaustion for 13 minutes and 28 seconds
because we have to then
6) go through all the %^*(&%^*%$* that is left and make decisions about what in the ^(%^&$ to do with it!
7) actually DO what in the ^(%^&$ we decided to do with all the %^*(&%^*%$* that is left
See? Piece of cake. Easy-peasy.
I think I want to either go off into the corner and suck my thumb or have a root canal. Either would be easier.
We have ordered the movers! And they are coming on either the 12th or 13th of August. The good news is that we have chosen to go with a firm that will give us door-to-door service, meaning that we do NOT have to load any shipping containers!
We do, however, have to provide them with about forty-eleven different sorts of inventories and forms and whatchamacallits and whatevers. AND we have to have everything packed and padded and ready for them to haul out. No big deal, right? Easy-peasy, no? "Hey, Bambi, are them bright shiny things up ahead yonder stars, ya think?"
Up until this moment I felt like I had things fairly well under control.
Not now.
Soooooooo. The plan of attack is to:
1) identify and pack those things left unpacked that we want to have in Boquete
2) pad and/or wrap the furniture and have it ready to go
3) have all the various and sundry pieces of paper (and thumbdrives) sorted out and ready
4) wave farewell to our household goods (with fervent prayers for the safety thereof)
5) collapse onto the floor (no sofa, remember??) in exhaustion for 13 minutes and 28 seconds
because we have to then
6) go through all the %^*(&%^*%$* that is left and make decisions about what in the ^(%^&$ to do with it!
7) actually DO what in the ^(%^&$ we decided to do with all the %^*(&%^*%$* that is left
See? Piece of cake. Easy-peasy.
I think I want to either go off into the corner and suck my thumb or have a root canal. Either would be easier.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Fat Lady is Gettin' Ready to Sing!
Watch out! This really bad opera is heading into the final act and the Fat Lady is starting her deep breathing exercises in order to sing.
We have set a date for the shipping container to be here. At least we have decided that August 12 is the date that we want the shipping container to be here. We still have not made "the call". Maybe we should put that on our TODO List...
Yesterday was our 18th anniversary. Wow! What an amazing and wonderful ride this has been. I certainly did not expect many of the things that the past 18 years have held. The one great constant has been my beloved Bob. Always there. Always supportive. Always loving.
With a date set, there is mucho pressure on me to git to gittin on this packing.
Pray for sanity.
We have set a date for the shipping container to be here. At least we have decided that August 12 is the date that we want the shipping container to be here. We still have not made "the call". Maybe we should put that on our TODO List...
Yesterday was our 18th anniversary. Wow! What an amazing and wonderful ride this has been. I certainly did not expect many of the things that the past 18 years have held. The one great constant has been my beloved Bob. Always there. Always supportive. Always loving.
With a date set, there is mucho pressure on me to git to gittin on this packing.
Pray for sanity.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
K1P1 Until You're Sick of It
In knitting, you have to do something to keep the edges of your work from curling up. Generally you do something called "ribbing" which is a stitch or two of knit stitch followed by a stitch or two of purl stitch. It looks nice on the finished sweater or jacket, but it is a pain in the neck to knit - and very easy to mess up. Which results in throwing your work back in the knitting bag and drowning your frustrations in something. Chocolate ice cream works nicely.
At any rate, the title of this blog comes from the famous line of knitting maven Elizabeth Zimmermann who wrote it originally in one of her patterns. And that is what most knitters do: knit the ribbing until they're sick of it. Then they go on to the body of the sweater or whatever.
I am sorting and packing and packing and sorting and sorting and packing. I am might near to the "I'm sick of it" point. I have decided that this is a recipe for madness.
I thank God, reverently and humbly, that Tuesday evenings now grant me the challenge and loving friendship and peace of a Beth Moore Bible study. A diverse group of ladies with a good 40-year age difference in some cases, gather at Erin Israel's home to pray, talk, encourage, love on, and study together. We are studying "Believing God" and, after only 2 sessions, I can tell that this is exactly where God wants me to be on Tuesdays! I have seen, over and over, in just 8 days (last Tuesday to tonight) how His hand is over me and how He is blessing me through this group. I expectantly wait to see how He grows me, pruning and all, into the child He wants me to be.
I found one of those musical cards yesterday. You know: they play the Chicken Dance or a movie theme or country or rock song. Well, this one plays a song from "Godspell", a 70's musical based on the story of Jesus. A secular play, true, but this song is a wonderful prayer set to infectuous (I hope that is spelled correctly!) music. The words are: "Day by day, day by day, Oh dear Lord, three things I pray: to see Thee more clearly, Love Thee more dearly, Follow Thee more nearly, day by day." Happy song. Sincere prayer. I bought the card. I'm keeping it for myself. For now.
Back to the sorting and packing. I am proud to announce that we are down to one car and one truck. Well, one car if you don't count the three collector's cars that we don't drive. But since they've not been on the road for over a decade, I don't count them. Just pray that SOMEONE wants a 1931 Model A, or a 1955 Chevy Bel Air, or a 1961 Bentley S-2 (I think) with right hand drive. They're for sale, in case you couldn't guess. Reasonable offers passed on to Bob who will then contact you.
I am about to the point of having nothing left to pack except the last minute stuff: dishes we still eat off of, sheets that go on the bed, clothes, shoes, my knitting! (I used a lot of my yarn as padding material when I was packing dishes and glassware, so I get to have a lot more yarn in Panama!) This is good because they don't seem to believe in yarn shops in Panama. Either I take it with me, or I buy on-line and pay big bucks for shipping. Personally, I'd rather be safe than sorry and take it with me...
Tomorrow I'm going to sort and pack! SQUEEEEEEEEE! I'm thrilled. Not.
At any rate, the title of this blog comes from the famous line of knitting maven Elizabeth Zimmermann who wrote it originally in one of her patterns. And that is what most knitters do: knit the ribbing until they're sick of it. Then they go on to the body of the sweater or whatever.
I am sorting and packing and packing and sorting and sorting and packing. I am might near to the "I'm sick of it" point. I have decided that this is a recipe for madness.
I thank God, reverently and humbly, that Tuesday evenings now grant me the challenge and loving friendship and peace of a Beth Moore Bible study. A diverse group of ladies with a good 40-year age difference in some cases, gather at Erin Israel's home to pray, talk, encourage, love on, and study together. We are studying "Believing God" and, after only 2 sessions, I can tell that this is exactly where God wants me to be on Tuesdays! I have seen, over and over, in just 8 days (last Tuesday to tonight) how His hand is over me and how He is blessing me through this group. I expectantly wait to see how He grows me, pruning and all, into the child He wants me to be.
I found one of those musical cards yesterday. You know: they play the Chicken Dance or a movie theme or country or rock song. Well, this one plays a song from "Godspell", a 70's musical based on the story of Jesus. A secular play, true, but this song is a wonderful prayer set to infectuous (I hope that is spelled correctly!) music. The words are: "Day by day, day by day, Oh dear Lord, three things I pray: to see Thee more clearly, Love Thee more dearly, Follow Thee more nearly, day by day." Happy song. Sincere prayer. I bought the card. I'm keeping it for myself. For now.
Back to the sorting and packing. I am proud to announce that we are down to one car and one truck. Well, one car if you don't count the three collector's cars that we don't drive. But since they've not been on the road for over a decade, I don't count them. Just pray that SOMEONE wants a 1931 Model A, or a 1955 Chevy Bel Air, or a 1961 Bentley S-2 (I think) with right hand drive. They're for sale, in case you couldn't guess. Reasonable offers passed on to Bob who will then contact you.
I am about to the point of having nothing left to pack except the last minute stuff: dishes we still eat off of, sheets that go on the bed, clothes, shoes, my knitting! (I used a lot of my yarn as padding material when I was packing dishes and glassware, so I get to have a lot more yarn in Panama!) This is good because they don't seem to believe in yarn shops in Panama. Either I take it with me, or I buy on-line and pay big bucks for shipping. Personally, I'd rather be safe than sorry and take it with me...
Tomorrow I'm going to sort and pack! SQUEEEEEEEEE! I'm thrilled. Not.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Casting On Redux
The point of doing a gauge swatch is to make sure that the garment you are knitting will actually fit the person you are knitting it for. Most knitting patterns say something like "Needle size is not important, the correct number of stitches per inch is. Use the size needles necessary to get gauge."
is a
More often than not, that means that I knit a gauge swatch, carefully remove it from the needles and measure it, swear under my breath, rip everything out and start over again. It is an unseen, thankless task.
Sometimes I think sorting and packing is a thankless task - it certainly is not unseen! There is a mountain of empty boxes waiting on the front porch waiting to be brought in and filled - and another mountain of stuff waiting for us to decide what to do with. Do we take it with us? Do we pack it away and store it in the basement in Nashville (an option made possible due to the fact that my darling daughter Tory and her roommate Natalie are moving in to our house)? Do we try to sell it? Do we donate it or just try to give it away?
When you stop to realize that Bob not only had his lifetime of stuff, but inherited his aunt's and parents' stuff and that Brandy did likewise you begin to understand the magnitude of the situation, uh, disaster.
On the happier side, Bob and I met a delightful couple from Georgia who are also thinking about retiring to Panama. We all had dinner together on Tuesday and talked about "shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings", to quote Lewis Carroll. Gina is a knitter with about 10 times the experience I have, and who was also able to show me many of the ins and out of the amazing knitting website Ravelry.com.
I also discovered a great website called Boquete.org that has all sorts of information about our new hometown. I wasted, uh, spent much of the aftenoon browsing through much of it. (I did get another box packed, and gave away a big bag of books.)
As Bob is fond of saying "Softly, softly catchee monkey." He also reminds me that you eat an elephant one bite at a time.
I probably should go pack something...
is a
More often than not, that means that I knit a gauge swatch, carefully remove it from the needles and measure it, swear under my breath, rip everything out and start over again. It is an unseen, thankless task.
Sometimes I think sorting and packing is a thankless task - it certainly is not unseen! There is a mountain of empty boxes waiting on the front porch waiting to be brought in and filled - and another mountain of stuff waiting for us to decide what to do with. Do we take it with us? Do we pack it away and store it in the basement in Nashville (an option made possible due to the fact that my darling daughter Tory and her roommate Natalie are moving in to our house)? Do we try to sell it? Do we donate it or just try to give it away?
When you stop to realize that Bob not only had his lifetime of stuff, but inherited his aunt's and parents' stuff and that Brandy did likewise you begin to understand the magnitude of the situation, uh, disaster.
On the happier side, Bob and I met a delightful couple from Georgia who are also thinking about retiring to Panama. We all had dinner together on Tuesday and talked about "shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings", to quote Lewis Carroll. Gina is a knitter with about 10 times the experience I have, and who was also able to show me many of the ins and out of the amazing knitting website Ravelry.com.
I also discovered a great website called Boquete.org that has all sorts of information about our new hometown. I wasted, uh, spent much of the aftenoon browsing through much of it. (I did get another box packed, and gave away a big bag of books.)
As Bob is fond of saying "Softly, softly catchee monkey." He also reminds me that you eat an elephant one bite at a time.
I probably should go pack something...
Monday, June 23, 2008
Casting On - An Introduction
This is a first for me: blogging, that is. But it seems to be the 21st century way to keep in touch with lots of people at once, so here goes.
Our move to Panama is dragging out like a bad opera. Days have turned into weeks, weeks into months, and the months are adding up to a year and a half delay from my original departure target. Oh, well. It has been an exercise in patience (and I swore I would never pray for patience because that's when my patience would be tried!)
I remember learning in nursing school about the stages of dying: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. I have bounced around all five of them in the past 18 months, but I am at peace now, so I guess I'm at acceptance. This is good.
I don't think of moving to Panama as dying, but such a major change does require one to get through it in stages. In working on this move, there have also been moments of excited anticipation: Boquete is a perfectly beautiful little village in the mountains of Panama, the climate is eternally springlike, and the coffee is even better than I could have dreamed. (The beans from which the notorious "$15 cup of coffee" is brewed come from Boquete!)
As a knitter, I called this post "Casting On", and so it is. I'm not yet knitting the intended garment, but I am working on the gauge swatch, making sure I am using the right yarn and needles so that when the Postcard From Panama is actually from Panama, it will be a thing of usefulness and, perhaps, beauty.
As I learn more about this new "craft" of blogging, I'm sure I'll be able to add pictures and suchlike. Be patient. I'm not the fastest learner, but like the tortoise, I'll get there sooner or later.
Our move to Panama is dragging out like a bad opera. Days have turned into weeks, weeks into months, and the months are adding up to a year and a half delay from my original departure target. Oh, well. It has been an exercise in patience (and I swore I would never pray for patience because that's when my patience would be tried!)
I remember learning in nursing school about the stages of dying: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. I have bounced around all five of them in the past 18 months, but I am at peace now, so I guess I'm at acceptance. This is good.
I don't think of moving to Panama as dying, but such a major change does require one to get through it in stages. In working on this move, there have also been moments of excited anticipation: Boquete is a perfectly beautiful little village in the mountains of Panama, the climate is eternally springlike, and the coffee is even better than I could have dreamed. (The beans from which the notorious "$15 cup of coffee" is brewed come from Boquete!)
As a knitter, I called this post "Casting On", and so it is. I'm not yet knitting the intended garment, but I am working on the gauge swatch, making sure I am using the right yarn and needles so that when the Postcard From Panama is actually from Panama, it will be a thing of usefulness and, perhaps, beauty.
As I learn more about this new "craft" of blogging, I'm sure I'll be able to add pictures and suchlike. Be patient. I'm not the fastest learner, but like the tortoise, I'll get there sooner or later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)